Joh 1:3 | Luther | STEP | [[The electronic version of this sermon is divided between the verses of John 1:1-14. Read all verses to see the entire sermon.]] V.3. “All things were made through him.” 28 Has this not been put clearly enough? Who would be surprised, if stubborn men reject every effort to convince them of their error, however plainly and earnestly the truth may be told them, when the Arians could evade this clear and explicit passage and say: All things are made by the Word, but the Word was itself first made, and afterwards all things were made by it? And this in opposition to the direct words: “All things were made through him.” And there is no doubt that he was not made and cannot be counted among the things that were made. For he who mentions all things excludes nothing, as St. Paul also explains , when he says, in : “Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he subjected all things unto him, he left nothing that is not subjected to him.” Again, : “For he put all things in subjection under his feet. It is evident that be is expected who did subject all things unto him.” So also the words, “All things were made through him,” must certainly be understood to except him by whom all things were made, and without whom is nothing that is made. This passage is also based upon the first chapter of , where all created things are mentioned which God had made, and in each case it is said: “And God said, and it was so,” in order to show that they were all made by the Word. But St. John continues and explains himself still more fully when he says: V.3. “And without him was not anything made that hath been made.” 29 If nothing was made without him, much less is he himself made without whom nothing was made; accordingly the error of Arius should never have attracted any attention, and yet it did. There is no need of comment to explain that the Word is God and the real Creator of all created things since without him nothing was made that ever was made. 30 Some have been in doubt about the order of the words in this text; the words “that was made”, they take with the following words, in this way: “That which was made, was in him life.” Of this opinion was St. Augustine. But the words properly belong to the preceding words as I have given them, thus: “And without him was not anything made that hath been made.” He means to say that none of the things that art; made, are made without him; so that he may the more clearly express that all things were made through him, and that he himself was not made. In short, the Evangelist firmly maintains that the Word is true God, yet not of himself, but of the Father. Therefore we say: Made through him, and Begotten of the Father. 31 On this passage there is generally much speculation, and it is often taken to mean something hard to understand in reference to the twofold existence of creation; in this the Platonic philosophers are famous. They maintain that all creation has its being first in its own nature and kind, as it was created. Secondly, all creation has its being in divine Providence from eternity, in that he has resolved in himself to create all things. Therefore as he lives so all things are living in him; and this creative existence in God, they say, is nobler than the existence in its own kind and nature. For in God things do live which in themselves have no life, as stones, earth, water, and the like. And therefore Saint Augustine says that this Word is an image of all creation, and like a bed- chamber is hung with images which are called Ideas (Greek for images), according to which the created things were made, each one according to its own image. Concerning these John is to have said: “In him was life.” Then they connect these words with the preceding ones, thus: That which was made was life in him, that is, all that was ever created, before it was created, had its life in him. 32 But this is going too far and is a forced interpretation of this passage. For John speaks very simply and plainly, and does not mean to lead us into such hair-splitting, subtle contemplations. I do not know that the Scriptures anywhere speak of created beings in this way. They do say that all things were known, elected, and even ready and living in the sight of God, as though creation bad already taken place, as Christ says of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in : “He (God) is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto him.” But we do not find it written in this sense that all things live in him. 33 This passage also implies something more than the life of the creature, which was in him before the world. It signifies in the simplest manner that he is the fountain and cause of life, that all things which live, live by him and through him and in him, and besides him there is no life, as he himself says in : “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Again, : “I am the resurrection and the life.” Consequently John calls him in . “The Word of Life;” and he speaks especially of the life which man receives by him, that is, eternal life; and it was for this very life that John set out to write his Gospel. 34 This is also apparent from the context For he himself explains the life of which he speaks, when he says: “And the life was the light of men.” By these words he undoubtedly shows that he speaks of the life and the light Christ gives to man through himself. For this reason also he refers to John the Baptist as a witness of that light. It is therefore evident how John the Baptist preached Christ, not in lofty terms of speculation, as some fable; but he taught in a plain, simple way how Christ is the light and the life of all men for their salvation. 35 Therefore it is well to remember that John wrote his Gospel, as the historians tell us, because Cerinthus, the heretic, arose in his day and taught that Christ did not exist before his mother Mary, thus making a simple human being or creature, of him. In opposition to this heretic he begins his Gospel in an exalted tone and continues thus to the end, so that in almost every letter he preaches the divinity of Christ, which is done by none of the other Evangelists. And so he also purposely introduces Christ as acting strangely towards his mother, and “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” he said to her in . Was not this a strange, harsh expression for a son to use in addressing his mother? So also on the cross he said: “Woman, behold thy son,”' . All this he does in order to set forth Christ as true God over against Cerinthus; and this he does in language so as not only to meet Cerinthus, but also Arius, Sabellius and all other heretics. 36 We read also that this same pious John saw Cerinthus in a bathing-house and said to his followers: “Let us flee quickly hence that we be not destroyed with this man.” And after John had come out, the bathing-house is said to have collapsed and destroyed this enemy of the truth. He thus points and directs all his words against the error of Cerinthus, and says: Christ was not only before his mother, nay, he was in the beginning the Word of which Moses writes in the very beginning, and all things were made by him, and he was with God and the Word was God, and was in the beginning with God; and thus he strikes Cerinthus as with thunderbolts. 37 Thus we take the meaning of the Evangelist in this passage to be simply and plainly this: He who does not recognize and believe Christ to be true God, as I have so far described him, that he was the Word in the beginning with God, and that all things were made by him; but wishes to make him only a creature of time, coming after his mother as Cerinthus teaches, is eternally lost, and cannot attain to eternal life; for there is no life without this Word and Son of God; in him alone is life. The man Christ, separate from, and without, God, would be useless, as he says himself in : “The flesh profiteth nothing. My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.” Why does the flesh profit nothing, and yet my flesh is the only true meat? The plain reason is, because I am not mere flesh and simply man, but I am God's son. My flesh is meat not because it is flesh, but because it is my flesh. This is as much as to say: He who believes that I, who am man, and have flesh and blood like other men, am the Son of God, and God, finds in me true nourishment, and will live. But he who believes me to be only man, is not profited by the flesh, for to him it is not my flesh or God's flesh. He also says: “Ye shall die in your sins, except ye believe that I am he,” . Again: “If the son shall therefore make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” This is also the meaning of the following passage, “In him was life.” The Word of God in the beginning, who is himself God, must be our life, meat, light, and salvation. Therefore we cannot attribute to Christ's human nature the power of making us alive, but the life is in the Word, which dwells in the flesh and makes us alive by the flesh. 38 This interpretation is simple and helpful. Thus St. Paul is wont to call the doctrine of the Gospel “doctrina pietatis,” a doctrine of piety--a doctrine that makes men rich in grace. However, the other interpretation which the heathen also have, namely, that all creatures live in God, does indeed make subtle disputants and is obscure and difficult; but it teaches nothing about grace, nor does it make men rich in grace. Wherefore the Scriptures speak of it as “idle.” Just as we interpret the words of Christ, when he says: “I am the life,” so also should we interpret these words, and say nothing philosophically of the life of the creatures in God; but on the contrary, we should consider how God lives in us, and makes us partakers of his life, so that we live through him, of him, and in him. For it can not be denied that through him natural life also exists, which even unbelievers have from him, as St. Paul says: “In him we live, and move, and have our being; for we are also his offspring.” . 39 Yes, natural life is a part of eternal life, its beginning, but on account of death it has an end, because it does not acknowledge and honor him from whom it comes; sin cuts it off so that it must die forever. On the other hand, those who believe in him, and acknowledge him from whom they have -their being, shall never die; but this natural life of theirs will be extended into eternal life, so that they will never taste death, as John says, : “Verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man keep my word, he shall never see death.” And again, : “He that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live.” These and similar passages are well understood when we rightly learn to know Christ, how he has slain death and has brought us life. 40 But when the Evangelist says: “In him was life.” and not, “In him is life,” as though he spoke of things past, the words must not be taken to mean the time before creation, or the time of the beginning; for be does not say: “In the beginning life was in him,” as he has just before said of the Word, which was in the beginning with God; but these words on earth, when the Word of God appeared to men and among men; for the Evangelist proposes to write about Christ and that life in which he accomplished all things necessary for our life. Just as he says of John the Baptist: “There came a man, sent from God;” and again: “He was not the Light, etc.;” even so he afterward speaks of the Word: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us;” “He was in the world;” “He came unto his own, and they that were his own received him not,” etc. In the same manner does Christ also speak of John the Baptist: “He was the lamp that burneth and shineth,” . 41 So he says also, here : “In him was life;” and Christ also says of himself: “When I am in the world, I am the light of the world,” . The words of the Evangelist therefore simply refer to the sojourn of Christ on earth. For as I said at first, this Gospel is not as difficult as some think; it has been made difficult by their looking for great, mysterious, and mighty things in it. The Evangelist has written it for ordinary Christians, and has made his words perfectly intelligible. For whoever will disregard the life and sojourn of Christ upon earth, and will wish to find him in some other way, as he now sits in heaven, will always fail. He must look for him as he was and as he sojourned on earth and he will then find life. Here Christ was made our life, light and salvation; here all things occurred that we are to believe concerning him. It has really been said in a most befitting manner: “In him was life,” not, that he is not our life now, but that he does not now do that which he then did. 42 That this is the meaning can be seen from the words of the text when it says: “John the Baptist came for witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him.” It is sufficiently clear that John came solely to bear witness of Christ, and yet he has said nothing at all of the life of the creatures in God supporting the above philosophical interpretation; but all his teaching and preaching were concerning the life of Christ upon earth, whereby he became the Life and Light of men. Now follows:

John 1:3

[[The electronic version of this sermon is divided between the verses of John 1:1-14. Read all verses to see the entire sermon.]]

_V.3. “All things were made through him.”

²⁸ Has this not been put clearly enough? Who would be surprised, if stubborn men reject every effort to convince them of their error, however plainly and earnestly the truth may be told them, when the Arians could evade this clear and explicit passage and say: All things are made by the Word, but the Word was itself first made, and afterwards all things were made by it? And this in opposition to the direct words: “All things were made through him.” And there is no doubt that he was not made and cannot be counted among the things that were made. For he who mentions all things excludes nothing, as St. Paul also explains Psalm 8:6, when he says, in Heb. 2,8: “Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he subjected all things unto him, he left nothing that is not subjected to him.” Again, 1 Cor. 15:27: “For he put all things in subjection under his feet. It is evident that be is expected who did subject all things unto him.”

So also the words, “All things were made through him,” must certainly be understood to except him by whom all things were made, and without whom is nothing that is made. This passage is also based upon the first chapter of Genesis, 1:7, where all created things are mentioned which God had made, and in each case it is said: “And God said, and it was so,” in order to show that they were all made by the Word. But St. John continues and explains himself still more fully when he says:

_V.3. “And without him was not anything made that hath been made.”

²⁹ If nothing was made without him, much less is he himself made without whom nothing was made; accordingly the error of Arius should never have attracted any attention, and yet it did. There is no need of comment to explain that the Word is God and the real Creator of all created things since without him nothing was made that ever was made.

³⁰ Some have been in doubt about the order of the words in this text; the words “that was made”, they take with the following words, in this way: “That which was made, was in him life.” Of this opinion was St. Augustine. But the words properly belong to the preceding words as I have given them, thus: “And without him was not anything made that hath been made.” He means to say that none of the things that art; made, are made without him; so that he may the more clearly express that all things were made through him, and that he himself was not made. In short, the Evangelist firmly maintains that the Word is true God, yet not of himself, but of the Father. Therefore we say: Made through him, and Begotten of the Father.

I.II. CHRIST'S SECOND TITLE AND ATTRIBUTE: IN HIM WAS LIFE.

³¹ On this passage there is generally much speculation, and it is often taken to mean something hard to understand in reference to the twofold existence of creation; in this the Platonic philosophers are famous. They maintain that all creation has its being first in its own nature and kind, as it was created. Secondly, all creation has its being in divine Providence from eternity, in that he has resolved in himself to create all things. Therefore as he lives so all things are living in him; and this creative existence in God, they say, is nobler than the existence in its own kind and nature. For in God things do live which in themselves have no life, as stones, earth, water, and the like.

And therefore Saint Augustine says that this Word is an image of all creation, and like a bed- chamber is hung with images which are called Ideas (Greek for images), according to which the created things were made, each one according to its own image. Concerning these John is to have said: “In him was life.” Then they connect these words with the preceding ones, thus: That which was made was life in him, that is, all that was ever created, before it was created, had its life in him.

³² But this is going too far and is a forced interpretation of this passage. For John speaks very simply and plainly, and does not mean to lead us into such hair-splitting, subtle contemplations. I do not know that the Scriptures anywhere speak of created beings in this way. They do say that all things were known, elected, and even ready and living in the sight of God, as though creation bad already taken place, as Christ says of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in Luke 20,38: “He (God) is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto him.” But we do not find it written in this sense that all things live in him.

³³ This passage also implies something more than the life of the creature, which was in him before the world. It signifies in the simplest manner that he is the fountain and cause of life, that all things which live, live by him and through him and in him, and besides him there is no life, as he himself says in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Again, John 11:25: “I am the resurrection and the life.” Consequently John calls him in 1 John 1:1. “The Word of Life;” and he speaks especially of the life which man receives by him, that is, eternal life; and it was for this very life that John set out to write his Gospel.

³⁴ This is also apparent from the context For he himself explains the life of which he speaks, when he says: “And the life was the light of men.” By these words he undoubtedly shows that he speaks of the life and the light Christ gives to man through himself. For this reason also he refers to John the Baptist as a witness of that light. It is therefore evident how John the Baptist preached Christ, not in lofty terms of speculation, as some fable; but he taught in a plain, simple way how Christ is the light and the life of all men for their salvation.

³⁵ Therefore it is well to remember that John wrote his Gospel, as the historians tell us, because Cerinthus, the heretic, arose in his day and taught that Christ did not exist before his mother Mary, thus making a simple human being or creature, of him. In opposition to this heretic he begins his Gospel in an exalted tone and continues thus to the end, so that in almost every letter he preaches the divinity of Christ, which is done by none of the other Evangelists. And so he also purposely introduces Christ as acting strangely towards his mother, and “Woman, what have I to do with thee?” he said to her in John 2:4. Was not this a strange, harsh expression for a son to use in addressing his mother? So also on the cross he said: “Woman, behold thy son,”' John 19,26. All this he does in order to set forth Christ as true God over against Cerinthus; and this he does in language so as not only to meet Cerinthus, but also Arius, Sabellius and all other heretics.

³⁶ We read also that this same pious John saw Cerinthus in a bathing-house and said to his followers: “Let us flee quickly hence that we be not destroyed with this man.” And after John had come out, the bathing-house is said to have collapsed and destroyed this enemy of the truth. He thus points and directs all his words against the error of Cerinthus, and says: Christ was not only before his mother, nay, he was in the beginning the Word of which Moses writes in the very beginning, and all things were made by him, and he was with God and the Word was God, and was in the beginning with God; and thus he strikes Cerinthus as with thunderbolts.

³⁷ Thus we take the meaning of the Evangelist in this passage to be simply and plainly this: He who does not recognize and believe Christ to be true God, as I have so far described him, that he was the Word in the beginning with God, and that all things were made by him; but wishes to make him only a creature of time, coming after his mother as Cerinthus teaches, is eternally lost, and cannot attain to eternal life; for there is no life without this Word and Son of God; in him alone is life. The man Christ, separate from, and without, God, would be useless, as he says himself in John 6:55,63: “The flesh profiteth nothing. My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.”

Why does the flesh profit nothing, and yet my flesh is the only true meat? The plain reason is, because I am not mere flesh and simply man, but I am God's son. My flesh is meat not because it is flesh, but because it is my flesh. This is as much as to say: He who believes that I, who am man, and have flesh and blood like other men, am the Son of God, and God, finds in me true nourishment, and will live. But he who believes me to be only man, is not profited by the flesh, for to him it is not my flesh or God's flesh.

He also says: “Ye shall die in your sins, except ye believe that I am he,” John 8:24. Again: “If the son shall therefore make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” This is also the meaning of the following passage, “In him was life.” The Word of God in the beginning, who is himself God, must be our life, meat, light, and salvation. Therefore we cannot attribute to Christ's human nature the power of making us alive, but the life is in the Word, which dwells in the flesh and makes us alive by the flesh.

³⁸ This interpretation is simple and helpful. Thus St. Paul is wont to call the doctrine of the Gospel “doctrina pietatis,” a doctrine of piety--a doctrine that makes men rich in grace. However, the other interpretation which the heathen also have, namely, that all creatures live in God, does indeed make subtle disputants and is obscure and difficult; but it teaches nothing about grace, nor does it make men rich in grace. Wherefore the Scriptures speak of it as “idle.”

Just as we interpret the words of Christ, when he says: “I am the life,” so also should we interpret these words, and say nothing philosophically of the life of the creatures in God; but on the contrary, we should consider how God lives in us, and makes us partakers of his life, so that we live through him, of him, and in him. For it can not be denied that through him natural life also exists, which even unbelievers have from him, as St. Paul says: “In him we live, and move, and have our being; for we are also his offspring.” Acts 17,28.

³⁹ Yes, natural life is a part of eternal life, its beginning, but on account of death it has an end, because it does not acknowledge and honor him from whom it comes; sin cuts it off so that it must die forever. On the other hand, those who believe in him, and acknowledge him from whom they have -their being, shall never die; but this natural life of theirs will be extended into eternal life, so that they will never taste death, as John says, 8:51: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, if a man keep my word, he shall never see death.” And again, John 11:25: “He that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live.” These and similar passages are well understood when we rightly learn to know Christ, how he has slain death and has brought us life.

⁴⁰ But when the Evangelist says: “In him was life.” and not, “In him is life,” as though he spoke of things past, the words must not be taken to mean the time before creation, or the time of the beginning; for be does not say: “In the beginning life was in him,” as he has just before said of the Word, which was in the beginning with God; but these words on earth, when the Word of God appeared to men and among men; for the Evangelist proposes to write about Christ and that life in which he accomplished all things necessary for our life. Just as he says of John the Baptist: “There came a man, sent from God;” and again: “He was not the Light, etc.;” even so he afterward speaks of the Word: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us;” “He was in the world;” “He came unto his own, and they that were his own received him not,” etc. In the same manner does Christ also speak of John the Baptist: “He was the lamp that burneth and shineth,” John 5,35.

⁴¹ So he says also, here : “In him was life;” and Christ also says of himself: “When I am in the world, I am the light of the world,” John 9:5. The words of the Evangelist therefore simply refer to the sojourn of Christ on earth. For as I said at first, this Gospel is not as difficult as some think; it has been made difficult by their looking for great, mysterious, and mighty things in it. The Evangelist has written it for ordinary Christians, and has made his words perfectly intelligible. For whoever will disregard the life and sojourn of Christ upon earth, and will wish to find him in some other way, as he now sits in heaven, will always fail. He must look for him as he was and as he sojourned on earth and he will then find life. Here Christ was made our life, light and salvation; here all things occurred that we are to believe concerning him. It has really been said in a most befitting manner: “In him was life,” not, that he is not our life now, but that he does not now do that which he then did.

⁴² That this is the meaning can be seen from the words of the text when it says: “John the Baptist came for witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him.” It is sufficiently clear that John came solely to bear witness of Christ, and yet he has said nothing at all of the life of the creatures in God supporting the above philosophical interpretation; but all his teaching and preaching were concerning the life of Christ upon earth, whereby he became the Life and Light of men. Now follows: